Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Cards That Never Were: Hank Allen 1973 & 1974

This is a recurring series in which I try to rectify sports card omissions, by creating "Cards That Never Were." I do not claim this idea to be mine, but the creations are.

I don't know when or why I developed a real soft spot for sports relatives. I just find it fascinating when pro athletes have relatives who also played professionally.

I also have a soft spot for underdogs. That one is a bit easier to figure, since I never was a star on any team.

When you combined an underdog sports relative, I was immediately hooked. I would follow the careers of the less-known brother (etc), while the bigger star relative grabbed the headlines (and deservedly so).

Such was the case in the early 70's when I discovered mega-star Dick Allen had a less successful brother named Hank. Dick had a 15 year career, amassing 1,848 career hits and 351 home runs. Hank played parts of seven seasons, collecting 212 hits and 6 homers. They also had another brother, Ron, who briefly played for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1972.

Hank had some baseball cards (3 solo and 1 multi-player). All of those cards pictured him with the Washington Senators. He did not appear on a 1971 card (Senators), a 1972 (Brewers) or 1973 and 1974 (White Sox).

Since he had appeared with the Senators, I could not find any pictures of Hank with the Brewers and I grew up a Sox fan, I decided to concentrate on giving him his rightful two Sox cards.

For his 1973 card, I listed his position as 3B, where he played the most in 1972. For 1974, I gave him the unusual INF-OF designation because his time was pretty split. He even caught a game, but I wasn't going to include that.

Before I finish, I would like to call out my card-creating bloggers to see if anyone could make a 1972 Hank Allen Brewers card. Someone out there can do it. I know how talented you all are.